Miracles

[Robban]

@Robban and @Quid est Veritas? , here is another thought on the horns of Moses. Maybe the horns of Moses were identical to the mark of Cain. The mark of Cain was God's way of protecting Cain. Some Jewish storytellers imagined the mark of Cain as horns, and they imagined that Cain was killed by a hunter who mistook him for an animal. (Others imagined Cain dying when a house collapsed on him, because God had promised that no man would kill Cain. Still others imagined the mark of Cain as a guard dog.) ... Anyway, this might suggest that horns as a symbol of divine protection or divine mission was present in Judaism before St. Jerome's time.

I am unfamiliar with Moses having horns .

I see horn/s as meaning power, strength, one meaning at any rate.

It is considered a rightous person has a mark on their forhead that animals recognize,

 

[Robban]

So do you think that the Samson story isn’t literal? I always have a tough time with Samson! Some struggle with Genesis but I’m totally fine with Genesis, Samson is what had given me troubles of doubt the most in life, and even currently I can’t say that I’m comfortable with it (like reading the story would leave me feeling foolish and gullible).

He is nearly like Superman. And things like ripping a lion in half always sounds so ridiculous to me in a literal sense. And one man killing 1000 would go far beyond the disbelief of even the most unreasonable Kung Fu movie where one man beats up 50 guys. Now I’m way more (intellectually) comfortable with stories where God strikes the highly favored (and much more plentiful in numbers) enemy with confusion, and even stories where it doesn’t specify what happens I could easily imagine how God might confuse, or perhaps even make a bunch of soldiers nauseous or something like that. But Samson is hard for me because things sound more unrealistic like he’s a superhero.

Even worse is things about the story that doesn’t even sound physically doable based on extension & leverage. Let’s say Samson was 6’ tall with a 6’ wingspan and weighed 200 lbs, how could he drag huge town gate doors and drag them for miles up a hill? He’s only dealing with 200 lbs of leverage. Worse, how could a man with a 6’ wingspan PULL two huge pillars together that were the foundation to a huge temple? The pillars can’t possibly be within arms reach! Nobody ever brings up Samson as there area of struggle lol but that’s the toughest one for me. I mean to beat 1000 men he would need to have the speed of Flash, or have a body that’s impossible to piece, or have super strength to avoid being completely smothered and trampled, etc, or actually he would need all of the above it seems. But still with the pillars it seems he would even need telekinesis.

Am not too familiar with the antics of Samson but as for the pillars, it was his last prayer and his wish was fulfilled

bringing down thousands of mocking Phlistines,
that is what sticks in my mind.

 

[Robban]

Torah is not just stories it is spiritual or otherworldly if you like, it was kept in the heavens until given at Sinai.

So searching for logical explanations is futile.

 

[Jok]

Firstly one must be careful with what is meant by literal. Modern historians feign an objectivity which is simply impossible - we all write from a subjective viewpoint, and history is merely the set of agreed upon lies. Ancient historians wrote in a different manner, with literary allusions and the like. Our modern idea of history is just another paradigm with its own veils drawn onto events.

Further, in legend we see a real historical event through the prism of a cultural tradition, that warps and distorts it - even more so when it is treated more as Epic or as a romance (in the mediaeval sense). So to take an example, Alexander the Great was a real Macedonian king that conquered the Persian Empire - but in Persian accounts he became Darius III's half-brother and is present at his heroic death, cradling him in his lap. In the Alexander Romance, he visits the bottom of the sea in a diving bell. In many Greek histories, his mother was impregnated by a snake, etc. Is this false? We think so, and modern historians sift the sources to find what they deem 'plausible', which is ofyen framed in a wholely naturalistic viewpoint. Now Greek historiography is the beginning of our history, so we are on more solid ground with what Alexander really did, but even that often sounds fantastic - like his visit to Siwa Oasis to be called a god, or his gallantry refusing water in the desert or treating Darius' harem kindly, or his headlong charge at Gaugemela.

Or a more recent example on this 4th of July, think of the fantastic escapes of Washington in the US war of Independance, or such mythologised scenes like Paul Revere's ride or Bunker Hill, or chopping down cherry trees.

Now what do we do with legendary figures where we only have the Romance narratives, like King Arthur? Here the archaelogy clearly points to a temporary recovery and reversal of the Anglo-Saxon conquest and this has always been attributed to a King Arthur in the Welsh tales. So it is plausible he existed, but what parts of his legend encode real events as opposed to literary embellishment? As a consequence, serious historians have placed him in South Cadbury or in Gwynedd or amongst the Goddodin in Scotland. We don't know.

With that long preamble, let us turn to Samson. The narrative has strong mythological parallels, as you are aware. Samson is a strongman figure, like Hercules or Enkidu or Cuhculain. The Philistines are likely Aegean in origin, as seen in the Goliath narrative especially, so some connection to Herakles/Hercules seems to be reasonable.

That said, is it false though? I don't think so, no. I would rather think we are dealing with King Arthur - a shadowy historic figure swathed in a mythological and cultural romance, which absorbed elements of surrounding stories. I would not be surprised if Samson wasn't his real name, but rather a persona adopted - like Genghis Khan or Stalin, maybe even Arthur which means bear - that people have come to know him as. This would then facilitate hos story accrueing more solar elements too.

The Philistines, known as the Peleset to the Egyptians, arrived in Palestine after being driven off by Ramses III as one of the Sea Peoples. They were clearly expansionist and almost conquered Egypt, yet failed to gain more than the sliver of land that became Philistia. This obviously points to a noted defence by the inhabitants of Canaan, but prior to their later attempts to expand again against Saul and David. This has been attributed to a Judge called Samson in Jewish tradition.

Now further, Philistine temples from excavations do have two large support pillars. These seem to have been stone bases with large cedar columns holding up a roof. We are dealing with pre-arch construction, so less secure, and these columns were only about 2 metres or so apart. Now a man chained between them; especially if a strong man, or having old partially rotting columns, or cracked bases from the frequent earthquakes in the area; pulling down the Temple, is not really that unreasonable. Other elements like Nazirite vows, which Samson notably fails to keep, also have a whiff of something that doesn't fit a 'superman' story.

So a lot of exaggeration perhaps, but hard to know where. Also I expect some euhemerism of Solar motiefs or the Herakles archetype too. But the kernel is probably a real guy, whose name might not even be Samson; as you must remember Judges is an epic round of stories, of the Israelites failing God then punished then redeemed, not a 'history' by our understanding. This is heroic material, like the Matters of France, Rome or Britain of the mediaeval period, with larger than life figures loosely based on real people with liberal admixture of story. That is pefectly fine, as you can learn far more about Western ideals from reading Arthurian Romance, or about Mediaevals view of themselves, than from most modern histories. What is 'real' is hard to know at the best of times.

First of all thank you. Second, this is all so much to take in and process, and so intimidating (both your reply and follow up posts). I feel like it’s no longer enough to study the Bible, but that you have to know the entirety of both ancient comparative religions, and ancient history to even understand what’s going on. I feel so ignorant right now, I don’t know anything about all of these background comparisons lol. In your opinion Is historical Jesus on a different historical playing field than the OT, as far as confidence level with miracles being literal as opposed to them being allusion to ancient motifs? Thanks

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

First of all thank you. Second, this is all so much to take in and process, and so intimidating (both your reply and follow up posts). I feel like it’s no longer enough to study the Bible, but that you have to know the entirety of both ancient comparative religions, and ancient history to even understand what’s going on. I feel so ignorant right now, I don’t know anything about all of these background comparisons lol. In your opinion Is historical Jesus on a different historical playing field than the OT, as far as confidence level with miracles being literal as opposed to them being allusion to ancient motifs? Thanks

Well, you must be careful what you mean by 'literal'. I see no reason why something that is literally so, cannot also be an allusion to something else. Tell me, are you familiar with the Lewisian concept of True Myth?

In fact, this is frequently what we see in OT prophecy, where a later event alludes back to earlier events, thus bringing parallels and meaning. Generally, think of the adage that history repeats itself, now what can we not glean from putting those repeats in juxtaposition?

As an example, look at the Stone of Scone upon which Scottish Kings were crowned. It was stolen by Edward I and placed under the English coronation throne, and a few hundred years later a Scot ascended the throne of England.
Or a more Biblically relevant one, did you know that the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple, and the Roman destruction of the Second Temple, occurred on the same day of the Jewish calender?

Now Jesus' accounts are not modern history, but Hellenistic histories. Today we feign an attempt at objectivity, while loading our accounts with modern biases and presuppostions - just look at all these BLM takes on history, where even Winston Churchill is to be taken down. Hellenistic histories were similar, in that they were about getting the point across about events, what they mean, what they can teach us. They are less fantastic than the Romances, and are the direct antecedents of our modern tradition of historiography, but a noted difference is that we today affect a naturalistic viewpoint when writing history. So when writing on events in which a miraculous event is central, modern histories try to excuse, or debunk, or ascribe it to naturalistic causes. Noted examples are the miraculous rain out of season in the Marcommanic Wars (that the ancients unequivocally thought divine intervention), or the vision of Constantine (nowadays treated as a solar Halo often), or the numerous visions in battle - at Antioch in the Crusades, Edgehill in the English Civil War, Blood River in 1836, Mons in WWI (where they are either ignored politely, or ascribed to battle stress or suggestion), etc. Our 'literal history' is nothing of the sort really, just a specific paradigm of talking about past events that we think is more plausible based on our modern axiomatic prejudices, but often just as at odds with the accounts. For instance, we are happy to follow Lucan's account of the battle of Pharsalus as 'authentic history', but just ignore his story about a witch raising the dead just prior to it.

So I hope you see where I am coming from here. Now the primary sources for Jesus are the Gospels, which are essentially pretty standard Hellenistic histories - especially Luke. Secular scholars place them about 70-110 AD, so well within the recent memory of Jesus, who was killed under Pontius Pilate (who governed Judaea from 26-36 AD). So this would be about if I wrote on the 70s or 80s say. We also have Roman writers like Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Suetonius that wrote close to the time and confirm some details, and more dubious evidence like the Nazareth decree.

Now further, the late date of the Gospels is only on account of the prophecy that the Temple is to be destroyed, so by standard practice prophecy is impossible and thus they had to have been written after 70 AD, when they knew the Temple was destroyed. This is quite silly, as it could have been prophesied even on secular grounds, as Judaea was restless and the Romans destroyed cities before, like Corinth, Numantia or Carthage. If we allow for prophecy, even more so. This drops our dates to the 50s AD, very close to the actual events. This is markedly different from Judges or Arthur say, written centuries after the lives of the figures involved.

So looking at the Gospels, they are pretty standard texts of the time - except that their subject matter is itself an utterly miraculous event, that the writers are fully aware of is miraculous and fantastic. When historians using standard practice then try and piece together the 'history' from this, they would jettison much of that - but essentially that is the heart of the account. As Paul said, without the cross and the empty tomb, they are meaningless. We are left with the standard all historians agree is fact or 'literally true', that Jesus of Nazareth existed, was baptised, lead a messianic movement, was crucified by Pilate (barring fringe nutjobs). This misses the whole point though of the texts themselves, and the meaning it held in the 1st century world of Second Temple Judaism and Hellenistic Mystery Religions.

The Gospels are therefore trying to tell a miracle story, and I see no strong grounds for rejecting its fundamentally miraculous narrative without undercutting its purpose. As an analogy, if I read about near-death experiences or meditation, and immediately medicalise it into merely brain chemistry, I am not really perceiving what those people experienced, but creating my own narrative thereof - which is largely a debunking or excusing their perception.

As a Christian, I firmly believe Jesus of Nazareth was God Incarnate, who died and rose again. I see this in the Gospels, where I see all the parallels of mythology, all the scattered leaves of human spirituality and religion, condensed into a Historic series of Events. I see mythology acted out in History, and via that history I can better understand both mythology and other history. Frankly, I think most of those Gospel miracles are Real, but the nature of historiography does not allow us to fundamentally present them that way, without falling into Apologetics or Preaching. History is not sure, the past is swathed in a blanket of time: The fall of Nineveh was redated 4 times, events taken as historical and them dropped before being taken up again (like Troy or the Milesians), and even recent events have several different accounts or ways of understanding them. When something strange happens in the modern world, we jump on it in empirical dissection, leaving a corpse of axiomatic assumptions and relegate investigation of it to Conspiracy Theorists or low budget sensational TV documentaries. This is merely our prism of socio-cultural interpretation, and there is no strong grounds to prefer it to another way of looking at things. It is about where you place your axioms, what you take as Self-Evident.

I extend Actuality to much of the Gospels, as they are texts close to their events, and aware that their subject matter beggars belief - hence the Church's early stress on Faith. They are written by reasonable men, not imaginitive Romances. CS Lewis made the point that those that think the Gospels merely stories have probably not read many stories, as they don't bear that narrative structure that well (although they do have literary structure within them). I make this point on the grounds of style and context, and as a consequence, the deep and glaring Mythological patterning and allusions within them, is strong support in my mind that Jesus of Nazareth reflects the Divine that all these stories were groping for. True Myth, essentially.


Footnote:
The Bible is composed of many different genres of writing. We have poetry and songs like Psalms, histories like the Gospels or Kings, more legendary Romance like Judges, etc. I have no way of knowing what is absolutely fact and what literary, but you can have an inkling. I don't think its meaning lies in it being an actual account of real events, but a lot of it I would class as that - with varying levels of probability. At least in the manner it was understood by their participants, as our view of what is 'actual' actually means projecting our viewpoint of how the world works and imposing it onto the accounts and understandings of people who thought in completely different ways about things. I don't think rejecting miraculous events out of hand is justified, merely a species of Presentism, and modern historians are often mired in contradiction on account of this; or why there have always been miracles recorded, but today we only see them in obscure corners of the internet or in hushed tones, as Naturalism is set-up as some form of Idol, while its feet are decidedly moist clay at best.

Postscript:
Here is an old thread I had made over the mythic parallels in other religions and Christianity:The Missing Page

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Was listening to an old History Channel documentary on Moses last night, and there was an interesting detail. Apparently one of the Egyptian sun gods would part the water in the Reed Sea and rest there from sun-down to sun-up.

This is willful confusion I feel, for a cheap point by those documentarians.

The Field of Reeds was a sort of Egyptian Elysian Fields, a blessed afterlife. Ra and his barque was said to rest there during his nightly trip through the underworld. It was also the realm of Osiris, treated as the Ka or soul of the Nile Delta. The parting of the Reed Sea to escape Pharoah is quite a different style of narrative, so this is quite a stretch, having only the moniker Reeds in common (which I assume to likely be an artifact of English translation).

 

[cloudyday2]

This is willful confusion I feel, for a cheap point by those documentarians.

The Field of Reeds was a sort of Egyptian Elysian Fields, a blessed afterlife. Ra and his barque was said to rest there during his nightly trip through the underworld. It was also the realm of Osiris, treated as the Ka or soul of the Nile Delta. The parting of the Reed Sea to escape Pharoah is quite a different style of narrative, so this is quite a stretch, having only the moniker Reeds in common (which I assume to likely be an artifact of English translation).

One way of understanding the Exodus is as God's way of saying to the Egyptian gods "anything you can do I can do better. I can do anything better than you" (if you remember the song LOL).

So not only is there this story of the Egyptian sun god parting the waters to rest on dry ground, but there is also a story of an Egyptian magician (or maybe it was even the Pharaoh himself) parting the waters of the Nile to retrieve a precious object that one of his concubines had carelessly lost overboard while they were out boating.

On the subject of the parting of the Red/Reed Sea, Elliot Friedman in the book I recently read on Exodus observed that the Song of the Sea when read on its own without the assumption from the narrative of Exodus is different in many details. As I recall there is only the drowning of the Egyptians in high waters and nothing about waters parting and Hebrews crossing on dry land. And the destination of the Hebrews is God's mountain/Temple. I would need to reread that part of the book to remember everything. The thesis of Friedman is that there was actually a historical Exodus/migration from Egypt, but it was only the Levites.

Also, these documentaries were probably produced in the 1990s before it became fashionable to question every assumption of Christianity. They were from a time when most American viewers still identified as Christian. I guess that is why I enjoy watching them - nostalgia.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

The thesis of Friedman is that there was actually a historical Exodus/migration from Egypt, but it was only the Levites.

The limited exodus is not uncommon. Some say only the tribes of Joseph undertook it, being Ephraim and Mannaseh, or only the 'children of Rachel' thus adding Benjamin. This turns the whole Jacob marrying multiple women into an aetiological myth, where the 6 tribes from Leah were the original confederation. The Rachel tribes then joined after an exodus from Egypt (perhaps related to the Osarseph narrative from Manetho) and then the 2 handmaiden's children joined last of all, and thus being relegated to descent from a non-wife (with 2 being Egypt related and thus associated with Rachel and 2 native and thus associated with Leah). The idea of a Levite only exodus makes little sense to me, as how did a foreign priesthood then become imposed onto the Israelite confederation?

That said, I don't really think the Exodus is such a big problem. The Ancient near east timelines are far from fixed, as the chronologies are created by patching together different peoples' recorded timelines. The Traditional Chronology has big problems, like the Greek Dark Age or the reign dates of Akhenaten's father; and the alternate ones like Rohl's New Chronology have different problems. Further, our records are partial as we mostly just have monumental inscriptions, like trying to recreate US history from only a portion of the monuments. The Jews, Greeks, and the Egyptian Manetho all agree an Exodus-like thing happened with the Israelites, so this insistence from many who only have partial and insecure chronologies that it didn't, is a bit silly. Having been slaves in a foreign land is not a triumphalist narrative, even if it ends on a triumphal tone, so its invention is highly unlikely as a national myth.

 

[Jok]

Tell me, are you familiar with the Lewisian concept of True Myth?

In fact, this is frequently what we see in OT prophecy, where a later event alludes back to earlier events, thus bringing parallels and meaning. Generally, think of the adage that history repeats itself, now what can we not glean from putting those repeats in juxtaposition?

As an example, look at the Stone of Scone upon which Scottish Kings were crowned. It was stolen by Edward I and placed under the English coronation throne, and a few hundred years later a Scot ascended the throne of England.

Or a more Biblically relevant one, did you know that the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple, and the Roman destruction of the Second Temple, occurred on the same day of the Jewish calender?

Now Jesus' accounts are not modern history, but Hellenistic histories. Today we feign an attempt at objectivity, while loading our accounts with modern biases and presuppostions - just look at all these BLM takes on history, where even Winston Churchill is to be taken down. Hellenistic histories were similar, in that they were about getting the point across about events, what they mean, what they can teach us. They are less fantastic than the Romances, and are the direct antecedents of our modern tradition of historiography, but a noted difference is that we today affect a naturalistic viewpoint when writing history. So when writing on events in which a miraculous event is central, modern histories try to excuse, or debunk, or ascribe it to naturalistic causes. Noted examples are the miraculous rain out of season in the Marcommanic Wars (that the ancients unequivocally thought divine intervention), or the vision of Constantine (nowadays treated as a solar Halo often), or the numerous visions in battle - at Antioch in the Crusades, Edgehill in the English Civil War, Blood River in 1836, Mons in WWI (where they are either ignored politely, or ascribed to battle stress or suggestion), etc. Our 'literal history' is nothing of the sort really, just a specific paradigm of talking about past events that we think is more plausible based on our modern axiomatic prejudices, but often just as at odds with the accounts. For instance, we are happy to follow Lucan's account of the battle of Pharsalus as 'authentic history', but just ignore his story about a witch raising the dead just prior to it.

So I hope you see where I am coming from here. Now the primary sources for Jesus are the Gospels, which are essentially pretty standard Hellenistic histories - especially Luke. Secular scholars place them about 70-110 AD, so well within the recent memory of Jesus, who was killed under Pontius Pilate (who governed Judaea from 26-36 AD). So this would be about if I wrote on the 70s or 80s say. We also have Roman writers like Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Suetonius that wrote close to the time and confirm some details, and more dubious evidence like the Nazareth decree.

Now further, the late date of the Gospels is only on account of the prophecy that the Temple is to be destroyed, so by standard practice prophecy is impossible and thus they had to have been written after 70 AD, when they knew the Temple was destroyed. This is quite silly, as it could have been prophesied even on secular grounds, as Judaea was restless and the Romans destroyed cities before, like Corinth, Numantia or Carthage. If we allow for prophecy, even more so. This drops our dates to the 50s AD, very close to the actual events. This is markedly different from Judges or Arthur say, written centuries after the lives of the figures involved.

So looking at the Gospels, they are pretty standard texts of the time - except that their subject matter is itself an utterly miraculous event, that the writers are fully aware of is miraculous and fantastic. When historians using standard practice then try and piece together the 'history' from this, they would jettison much of that - but essentially that is the heart of the account. As Paul said, without the cross and the empty tomb, they are meaningless. We are left with the standard all historians agree is fact or 'literally true', that Jesus of Nazareth existed, was baptised, lead a messianic movement, was crucified by Pilate (barring fringe nutjobs). This misses the whole point though of the texts themselves, and the meaning it held in the 1st century world of Second Temple Judaism and Hellenistic Mystery Religions.

The Gospels are therefore trying to tell a miracle story, and I see no strong grounds for rejecting its fundamentally miraculous narrative without undercutting its purpose. As an analogy, if I read about near-death experiences or meditation, and immediately medicalise it into merely brain chemistry, I am not really perceiving what those people experienced, but creating my own narrative thereof - which is largely a debunking or excusing their perception.

As a Christian, I firmly believe Jesus of Nazareth was God Incarnate, who died and rose again. I see this in the Gospels, where I see all the parallels of mythology, all the scattered leaves of human spirituality and religion, condensed into a Historic series of Events. I see mythology acted out in History, and via that history I can better understand both mythology and other history. Frankly, I think most of those Gospel miracles are Real, but the nature of historiography does not allow us to fundamentally present them that way, without falling into Apologetics or Preaching. History is not sure, the past is swathed in a blanket of time: The fall of Nineveh was redated 4 times, events taken as historical and them dropped before being taken up again (like Troy or the Milesians), and even recent events have several different accounts or ways of understanding them. When something strange happens in the modern world, we jump on it in empirical dissection, leaving a corpse of axiomatic assumptions and relegate investigation of it to Conspiracy Theorists or low budget sensational TV documentaries. This is merely our prism of socio-cultural interpretation, and there is no strong grounds to prefer it to another way of looking at things. It is about where you place your axioms, what you take as Self-Evident.

I extend Actuality to much of the Gospels, as they are texts close to their events, and aware that their subject matter beggars belief - hence the Church's early stress on Faith. They are written by reasonable men, not imaginitive Romances. CS Lewis made the point that those that think the Gospels merely stories have probably not read many stories, as they don't bear that narrative structure that well (although they do have literary structure within them). I make this point on the grounds of style and context, and as a consequence, the deep and glaring Mythological patterning and allusions within them, is strong support in my mind that Jesus of Nazareth reflects the Divine that all these stories were groping for. True Myth, essentially.


Footnote:
The Bible is composed of many different genres of writing. We have poetry and songs like Psalms, histories like the Gospels or Kings, more legendary Romance like Judges, etc. I have no way of knowing what is absolutely fact and what literary, but you can have an inkling. I don't think its meaning lies in it being an actual account of real events, but a lot of it I would class as that - with varying levels of probability. At least in the manner it was understood by their participants, as our view of what is 'actual' actually means projecting our viewpoint of how the world works and imposing it onto the accounts and understandings of people who thought in completely different ways about things. I don't think rejecting miraculous events out of hand is justified, merely a species of Presentism, and modern historians are often mired in contradiction on account of this; or why there have always been miracles recorded, but today we only see them in obscure corners of the internet or in hushed tones, as Naturalism is set-up as some form of Idol, while its feet are decidedly moist clay at best.

Postscript:
Here is an old thread I had made over the mythic parallels in other religions and Christianity:The Missing Page

If I could totally focus in on one thing you said, which is what got me thinking overtime from your reply about Judges, it is you saying that Judges is legendary Romance genre. I always thought that Judges was historical narrative like Kings (although you do bring up a good point that the Gospels are even closer to historical narrative than even Kings because they are in the Hellenistic histories), so the original audience would be ok with Samson not actually killing 1000 men all by himself, because it's legendary Romance, but the original audience would not be ok with Jesus not really walking on water or healing cripples, etc?

Yes I am in agreement with a lot of things you said going for the historical strength of the Gospels and Paul, but my reply was looking at it in light of what you said about Judges, I never thought to myself hey what if the original audience didn't even consider the miracles to be anything more that literary flavor or something? Ok, so you are saying that such a thing is not a violation for legendary Romance but it is a violation for Hellenistic histories? There is something that has always had a different feel for me in the Gospels, that feels like it may be ok if it's non-literal and more so an OT allusion, and that is the part in Matthew 27 where the graves split open and many of the dead saints entered the holy city and appeared to many people. I'm not sure why exactly but it feels like something that would be ok for the original audience if they knew it wasn't literal, if it was a spiritual reference or something (although maybe I'm wrong and it was literal). However other miracles do not have that feel to me, they have a feeling of straight forward events taking place, they have the feeling that the original audience would feel deceived if those miracles weren't literal.

Tell me, are you familiar with the Lewisian concept of True Myth?

No, sounds interesting though!

Or a more Biblically relevant one, did you know that the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple, and the Roman destruction of the Second Temple, occurred on the same day of the Jewish calender?

Wow I definitely didn't know that.

This is quite silly, as it could have been prophesied even on secular grounds, as Judaea was restless and the Romans destroyed cities before, like Corinth, Numantia or Carthage.

That's a really good point for people who tack on decades just because of the prophecy factor, that's true I never thought about that before.

When historians using standard practice then try and piece together the 'history' from this, they would jettison much of that - but essentially that is the heart of the account.

Yeah I wasn't really worried about what skeptics would think, there's absolutely no pleasing their objections lol, I was just making sure that 1st generation believers wouldn't possibly be ok with all Jesus miracles not actually being literal but being more like Samson ripping a lion in half or killing 1000 men (but as you have said that's legendary Romance genre).

The Gospels are therefore trying to tell a miracle story, and I see no strong grounds for rejecting its fundamentally miraculous narrative without undercutting its purpose.

Yes it definitely feels like it would undercut the entire point. I am also playing hard Devil's advocate too because I don't want to have blinders on, I like to voice my trouble areas, so we may as well fully peel the onion of my discomforts with Judges/Samson.

CS Lewis made the point that those that think the Gospels merely stories have probably not read many stories, as they don't bear that narrative structure that well (although they do have literary structure within them). I make this point on the grounds of style and context, and as a consequence, the deep and glaring Mythological patterning and allusions within them, is strong support in my mind that Jesus of Nazareth reflects the Divine that all these stories were groping for. True Myth, essentially.

This is me, I haven't read many stories so I'm not good with literary flavors, this probably makes it that much harder for me to cozy up to this True Myth thing, but it does sound very interesting.

Postscript:
Here is an old thread I had made over the mythic parallels in other religions and Christianity:The Missing Page

Ok thanks a lot I'll definitely check it out

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

If I could totally focus in on one thing you said, which is what got me thinking overtime from your reply about Judges, it is you saying that Judges is legendary Romance genre. I always thought that Judges was historical narrative like Kings (although you do bring up a good point that the Gospels are even closer to historical narrative than even Kings because they are in the Hellenistic histories), so the original audience would be ok with Samson not actually killing 1000 men all by himself, because it's legendary Romance, but the original audience would not be ok with Jesus not really walking on water or healing cripples, etc?

Yes I am in agreement with a lot of things you said going for the historical strength of the Gospels and Paul, but my reply was looking at it in light of what you said about Judges, I never thought to myself hey what if the original audience didn't even consider the miracles to be anything more that literary flavor or something? Ok, so you are saying that such a thing is not a violation for legendary Romance but it is a violation for Hellenistic histories? There is something that has always had a different feel for me in the Gospels, that feels like it may be ok if it's non-literal and more so an OT allusion, and that is the part in Matthew 27 where the graves split open and many of the dead saints entered the holy city and appeared to many people. I'm not sure why exactly but it feels like something that would be ok for the original audience if they knew it wasn't literal, if it was a spiritual reference or something (although maybe I'm wrong and it was literal). However other miracles do not have that feel to me, they have a feeling of straight forward events taking place, they have the feeling that the original audience would feel deceived if those

Firstly you must realise that there is something called the Sense of the Past, which is a cultural phenomenon. Most people have a fairly good grasp of events in their own lifetimes, and more roughly their parents and their grandparents, but further than that it becomes hazy. Some cultures lump everything before their grandparents in to one before-time, like the Aboriginal Dreamtime.

Other cultures have a vague sense, but these are other schemes. So mediaeval depictions of Troy are knights in armour with fluttering penants, and they ascribe Coats-of-Arms to Biblical figures, or say patently absurd things like ancient Romans heading to Mass. They simply don't undrrstand that the distant past was fundamentally different from their own day. Or peoples like the Aztecs or Hindus, that believed in repetitive grand cycles.

Others like the Iranians traditionally, created broad epochs. This is similar to the popular western conception, where we have the Ancients in a sort of Greco-Roman mishmash of sword and sandals, then knights in the mediaeval period, then Pirates and Pilgrims. All the various events in those epochs are thrown together more often than not - think of most Robin Hood depictions say.

History is an invention, specifically of the Greeks, who thought to depict a continuous narrative and realised change occurred. After the fall of Rome, this sense was lost, but rediscovered in the Renaissance; yet the western habit of division into easy snippets like Mediaeval, Age of Discovery, etc. popularly disrupts this sense again - so that it is weird to think that Agincourt that is all penants and knights and archers, is just a century prior to Tudor England, which we think of as a new time, dramatically different.

So the first thing to realise is our sense of history simply did not exist amongst the ancient Israelites. Judges, even as a Romance, was likely thought to have occurred. In the mediaeval period we had fantastic Romances like those of Geoffrey of Monmouth treated as history, while they also read real histories like Tacitus or Cassius Dio say. The hard border between a history and historical fiction does not really exist, until an idea of a practice of history writing, a methodology, arose amongst the Greeks.

That said, the Semitic peoples have their own Sense of the Past. This is usually punctuated by the Flood, with long-lived larger than life antediluvians, and more normal lifespans afterwards. The Biblical narrative is further divided as a sense of a Patriarchal period, then a Post-Exodus tribal period which then merges into the United Kingdom under Saul and David. You can feel the fantastic mantle fade as you make this transition, from where every figure was father of a tribe or group, to stereotyped 40 years of peace or so, to what sounds like more clear 'history' to us. This is akin to if I made a tv show and had my characters meet Norse gods amongst the Vikings or have a Merlin figure, no one would bat an eyelid; but if I then moved them into WWII and still had magicians, it would be more jarring to historical sensibility. I would be given far more leeway to introduce the fantastic if I set a story in mediaeval times, than I would if I put it in the 18th century say. This has to do with when the first parts of the Bible was put into writing, which likely started to occur about the 8th century BC. This fossilised the "grandfather' s day" before it became a Dreamtime. Look at all the Rabbinical commentary, and you see fantastic elements sneak back in, once sufficient time has elapsed.

There is another writer called Owen Barfield, a friend of CS Lewis, who wrote a lot about this. This idea that people in the past thought in a similar way to us is clearly false. To us, the difference between a history and a Romance is stark; in the past, it was more malleable. More recent examples, think how George Washington cutting down a cherry tree, or Davy Crockett with his furcap, or a swashbuckling Pirate has percolated into popular history and thinking. The ancient Jews didn't give a second thought to Judges vs Chronicles, the division while clear to us, did not yet really exist - akin to how ancient Astrological or Alchemical texts are often treated as the first Astronomy or Chemistry, as the division of concept had not yet occurred, but is present in potentia.


Postscript:
Modern people often make a conceptual error similar in kind to the mediaevals; while realising the old days were different, they don't realise people thought differently or had different conceptions. So they think myths are Just So Stories or crude attempts at scientific hypotheses, or think that a hard Naturalistic sense of reporting would be incongruous with more fantastic elements. As I mentioned earlier, Lucan starts his account of the battle of Pharsalus with a witch raising the dead, or a pretty standard history might mention, as an anecdote, omens or divine birth narratives like Olympias and the snake. The act of reading or writing history is more often than not, the act of imposing your own conception.

 

[cloudyday2]

Having been slaves in a foreign land is not a triumphalist narrative, even if it ends on a triumphal tone, so its invention is highly unlikely as a national myth.

Another possibility that I've occasionally wondered about is Mesopotamian foreign policy. I imagine that Cyrus sent the Jewish exiles back to Judah in an effort to strengthen the provincial government there. Egypt at times was a rival power in Judah, so maybe the Exodus story and Passover celebration was encouraged by Persia. Maybe the ideas were present, but they were inflated in an effort to discourage future Egyptian meddling in the region.

I know it's kind of a stretch, but the slavery in Egypt story seems highly convenient for the Persians.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Another possibility that I've occasionally wondered about is Mesopotamian foreign policy. I imagine that Cyrus sent the Jewish exiles back to Judah in an effort to strengthen the provincial government there. Egypt at times was a rival power in Judah, so maybe the Exodus story and Passover celebration was encouraged by Persia. Maybe the ideas were present, but they were inflated in an effort to discourage future Egyptian meddling in the region.

I know it's kind of a stretch, but the slavery in Egypt story seems highly convenient for the Persians.

Well, there was an actual Jewish temple in Egypt at the time, in Elephantine - albeit one that seems to have missed out on Hezekiah's reforms. The Bible also states that Jews fled to Egypt after the Babylonian conquest, and Judea had largely aligned with Egypt against first Assyria and then Babylon.

Cyrus allowing the Jews to return was risky, but by doing so, he largely made Jews a placid part of his empire. I can see him encouraging, or more likely a figure like Ezra, an exodus tradition to oppose emigration to Egypt. An interesting idea, but no real way to support it beyond conjecture.

 

[Jok]

Firstly you must realise that there is something called the Sense of the Past, which is a cultural phenomenon. Most people have a fairly good grasp of events in their own lifetimes, and more roughly their parents and their grandparents, but further than that it becomes hazy. Some cultures lump everything before their grandparents in to one before-time, like the Aboriginal Dreamtime.

Other cultures have a vague sense, but these are other schemes. So mediaeval depictions of Troy are knights in armour with fluttering penants, and they ascribe Coats-of-Arms to Biblical figures, or say patently absurd things like ancient Romans heading to Mass. They simply don't undrrstand that the distant past was fundamentally different from their own day. Or peoples like the Aztecs or Hindus, that believed in repetitive grand cycles.

Others like the Iranians traditionally, created broad epochs. This is similar to the popular western conception, where we have the Ancients in a sort of Greco-Roman mishmash of sword and sandals, then knights in the mediaeval period, then Pirates and Pilgrims. All the various events in those epochs are thrown together more often than not - think of most Robin Hood depictions say.

History is an invention, specifically of the Greeks, who thought to depict a continuous narrative and realised change occurred. After the fall of Rome, this sense was lost, but rediscovered in the Renaissance; yet the western habit of division into easy snippets like Mediaeval, Age of Discovery, etc. popularly disrupts this sense again - so that it is weird to think that Agincourt that is all penants and knights and archers, is just a century prior to Tudor England, which we think of as a new time, dramatically different.

So the first thing to realise is our sense of history simply did not exist amongst the ancient Israelites. Judges, even as a Romance, was likely thought to have occurred. In the mediaeval period we had fantastic Romances like those of Geoffrey of Monmouth treated as history, while they also read real histories like Tacitus or Cassius Dio say. The hard border between a history and historical fiction does not really exist, until an idea of a practice of history writing, a methodology, arose amongst the Greeks.

That said, the Semitic peoples have their own Sense of the Past. This is usually punctuated by the Flood, with long-lived larger than life antediluvians, and more normal lifespans afterwards. The Biblical narrative is further divided as a sense of a Patriarchal period, then a Post-Exodus tribal period which then merges into the United Kingdom under Saul and David. You can feel the fantastic mantle fade as you make this transition, from where every figure was father of a tribe or group, to stereotyped 40 years of peace or so, to what sounds like more clear 'history' to us. This is akin to if I made a tv show and had my characters meet Norse gods amongst the Vikings or have a Merlin figure, no one would bat an eyelid; but if I then moved them into WWII and still had magicians, it would be more jarring to historical sensibility. I would be given far more leeway to introduce the fantastic if I set a story in mediaeval times, than I would if I put it in the 18th century say. This has to do with when the first parts of the Bible was put into writing, which likely started to occur about the 8th century BC. This fossilised the "grandfather' s day" before it became a Dreamtime. Look at all the Rabbinical commentary, and you see fantastic elements sneak back in, once sufficient time has elapsed.

There is another writer called Owen Barfield, a friend of CS Lewis, who wrote a lot about this. This idea that people in the past thought in a similar way to us is clearly false. To us, the difference between a history and a Romance is stark; in the past, it was more malleable. More recent examples, think how George Washington cutting down a cherry tree, or Davy Crockett with his furcap, or a swashbuckling Pirate has percolated into popular history and thinking. The ancient Jews didn't give a second thought to Judges vs Chronicles, the division while clear to us, did not yet really exist - akin to how ancient Astrological or Alchemical texts are often treated as the first Astronomy or Chemistry, as the division of concept had not yet occurred, but is present in potentia.


Postscript:
Modern people often make a conceptual error similar in kind to the mediaevals; while realising the old days were different, they don't realise people thought differently or had different conceptions. So they think myths are Just So Stories or crude attempts at scientific hypotheses, or think that a hard Naturalistic sense of reporting would be incongruous with more fantastic elements. As I mentioned earlier, Lucan starts his account of the battle of Pharsalus with a witch raising the dead, or a pretty standard history might mention, as an anecdote, omens or divine birth narratives like Olympias and the snake. The act of reading or writing history is more often than not, the act of imposing your own conception.

Thank you, this is all interesting stuff that helps! I think when you grow up in such an environment that favors literalism things like this just don’t want to be digested easily. It feels like even though I hear what you are saying my instincts are still putting up a fight for more of a modern bias of consistency, that consistency that only exists for our modern eyes.

That’s really interesting when you say that the hard border between a history and historical fiction does not really exist, until an idea of a practice of history writing, a methodology, arose amongst the Greeks. You then mentioned the extremely long lifespans for the Semites, so would that be the mixture of history with historical fiction, would the original audience know that people living for 950 years would be a section of the story that is historical fiction mixed in with pure history? Or maybe I shouldn’t say pure history, at least not for Judges. I remember what you said about how at the very least the general patterns would still be literally true, like how the Phoenicians almost defeated Egypt, but then how something had to give that such a force couldn’t push in land. At any rate it is refreshing that when the NT comes around we are closer to our current ideas of history, at least more so than the OT, since Jesus is definitely the most important historical part.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Thank you, this is all interesting stuff that helps! I think when you grow up in such an environment that favors literalism things like this just don’t want to be digested easily. It feels like even though I hear what you are saying my instincts are still putting up a fight for more of a modern bias of consistency, that consistency that only exists for our modern eyes.

That’s really interesting when you say that the hard border between a history and historical fiction does not really exist, until an idea of a practice of history writing, a methodology, arose amongst the Greeks. You then mentioned the extremely long lifespans for the Semites, so would that be the mixture of history with historical fiction, would the original audience know that people living for 950 years would be a section of the story that is historical fiction mixed in with pure history? Or maybe I shouldn’t say pure history, at least not for Judges. I remember what you said about how at the very least the general patterns would still be literally true, like how the Phoenicians almost defeated Egypt, but then how something had to give that such a force couldn’t push in land. At any rate it is refreshing that when the NT comes around we are closer to our current ideas of history, at least more so than the OT, since Jesus is definitely the most important historical part.

Well again, there was no concept differentiating history and historical fiction. The earliest 'histories' were poetic Epics like the Iliad or the Odyssey, the Enuma Elish, or the like. Firstly you have to have an idea of 'what is possible', a division between probable and improbable, and based on that, elements would have to be teased apart. You seem to be assuming a Naturalism that is simply silly to expect. Take the Mediaeval period: where people believed there was a plant that bore lambs as fruit (the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, a garbled account of Cotton), or monopods with one large foot that lie on their back to block out the sun, or dragons. If you believe these exist in foreign lands, you won't bat an eyelid at dragons or ogres in stories. To mediaevals, stories of stones that attract other stones (magnets) or objects that can remotely move tiny pieces of cloth (static electricity) were the same type of fabulous stories. Those we are happy to see as historical, for to us, they are quotidian; while we reject dragons for the same reasons. Just because long-lived antediluvians are fantastic to us, doesn't mean it would be as so to them, as a simple account of magnetism would be.

Or another example, sailors spoke of huge sea serpents and giant squids, with monsters like the Kraken thus being created. The latter was dismissed by the 19th century as an old wives tale, but in the 20th we realised Giant Squids do exist. Or how the existence of Gorilla were dismissed as fantasy, akin to Bigfoot or the Yeti. Or the first Platypuses that reached Europe were thought an elaborate hoax. Or the gliding snakes of the Far-East sound as if they escaped straight from a Romance. Or think how stories of white people with guns, cannons and horses would have sounded to Pre-Columbian New World civilisations.

So Lucian wrote a book called the Macrobii, or the Long-Lived, back in Roman times. It chronicles people who lived into their 120s. Now we know this is possible, and though we have increased the average lifespans, the maximum lifespan in any age seems stuck around 120 (and those reaching it remain few). So such ages are unlikely, but not impossible, in ancient accounts. This is not the 900 years of Antediluvians, but if you have no concept of a human organism as biological life with finite ranges, why on earth couldn't the antediluvians have lived as long?

It is hard to set aside your own prejudices, your own cultural inclinations. The past is a foreign country, and it is easy to read anachronism into it. That is why Lewis said to read 2 old books for every new one, as we cannot see our own mistakes or preconceptions while we make them; but the fresh wind of history would shine a new light on ourselves, showing us that what we simply accept as so, is really a particular paradigm or historic process. Our assumption of the primacy of empiric sense-data, or the accumulated body of knowledge derived from it (as in Science or Medicine) as if more Epistemologically sure, is merely a Western belief. India traditionally rejected sense-data as valid, as in the Upanishads or Buddhism; or the tradition of Plato's Cave haunts the West as well, saying the Aristotlean empiric tradition might just be shadow.

Ideas we take for granted; like a tiny object that can destroy a whole city, or that time slows down the faster you move; would seem utter fantasy to a 19th century European. Conversely, ideas like Hysteria or Phrenology that seemed reasonable, today isn't. What we take as history and what as historical fiction or falsehoods, often says more about what we believe, than what 'really happened'. Owen Barfield said history writing was creating a new thing, telescoping our own experience into the past and saying: If modern man existed then, what would he have then perceived?

 

[cloudyday2]

Torah is not just stories it is spiritual or otherworldly if you like, it was kept in the heavens until given at Sinai.

So searching for logical explanations is futile.

I've been wondering what your approach to the Torah means in practice.

Here are some questions:

(1) If historians could prove that the Torah was NOT given at Sinai but evolved significantly over many centuries and many authors would that be a problem?

(2) If a story in the Torah is presented as history and could be proven to be fiction would that be a problem? For example, what if all the history prior to the Monarchy is a complete fiction: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Gideon ... no covenant or Abraham, no exodus or Moses, no conquest or Joshua?

 

[Robban]

I've been wondering what your approach to the Torah means in practice.

Here are some questions:

(1) If historians could prove that the Torah was NOT given at Sinai but evolved significantly over many centuries and many authors would that be a problem?

(2) If a story in the Torah is presented as history and could be proven to be fiction would that be a problem? For example, what if all the history prior to the Monarchy is a complete fiction: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Gideon ... no covenant or Abraham, no exodus or Moses, no conquest or Joshua?

What do historians have to do with Torah?

Torah is not a history book/s.

Torah is the very soul and will of the Creator,
lessons, it is in layers so if one can come no further,
lift a layer.

Through the ages many have wanted to abolish Torah,
some by force others by diluting and contamination.

Hanacha is about a jar of uncontaminated oil that was found enough for one day but burned for eight,

so too with Torah.

Torah is truth and truth cannot die.

 

[Jok]

If you believe these exist in foreign lands, you won't bat an eyelid at dragons or ogres in stories.

I couldn't stop thinking about this part, I can't believe I never thought about it before. We have successfully gotten our hooks into the entire planet, and we have knowledge about the entire thing. I can't believe I never thought about how untapped the majority of the planet was to the minds of all these ancient peoples, lol how did I miss that, their belief in fantastical things they have never seen, like dragons, does tend to make all the sense in the world! Because it has always been pretty common to know that different bizarre things live in different parts of the world.

Just because long-lived antediluvians are fantastic to us, doesn't mean it would be as so to them, as a simple account of magnetism would be.

So Lucian wrote a book called the Macrobii, or the Long-Lived, back in Roman times. It chronicles people who lived into their 120s. Now we know this is possible, and though we have increased the average lifespans, the maximum lifespan in any age seems stuck around 120 (and those reaching it remain few). So such ages are unlikely, but not impossible, in ancient accounts. This is not the 900 years of Antediluvians, but if you have no concept of a human organism as biological life with finite ranges, why on earth couldn't the antediluvians have lived as long?

So now we not only have the mystery of the uncharted world, but also the mystery of ancient days. Funny to think of an entire world who would not roll their eyes at stories of 900 year life spans, it really is tough to put away your modern day eyes, even though it's so casual for people to insist that they do just that.

Or another example, sailors spoke of huge sea serpents and giant squids, with monsters like the Kraken thus being created. The latter was dismissed by the 19th century as an old wives tale, but in the 20th we realised Giant Squids do exist. Or how the existence of Gorilla were dismissed as fantasy, akin to Bigfoot or the Yeti. Or the first Platypuses that reached Europe were thought an elaborate hoax. Or the gliding snakes of the Far-East sound as if they escaped straight from a Romance. Or think how stories of white people with guns, cannons and horses would have sounded to Pre-Columbian New World civilisations.

Yes these are great points, great ways to think about things. And of course it becomes even that much more fantastical if you have actual miracle stories that have been passed down to generations. Now you add legends of false miracles from far away unseen lands.

It is hard to set aside your own prejudices, your own cultural inclinations. The past is a foreign country, and it is easy to read anachronism into it.

And I just thought about ghost stories from the past, even in my own family no matter how much they may have been nonsense there sure were people willing to eat them up. Now just imagine the power of ghost stories from before the scientific revolution!

That is why Lewis said to read 2 old books for every new one

This guy would have made one interesting grandfather lol.

What we take as history and what as historical fiction or falsehoods, often says more about what we believe, than what 'really happened'.

I bet it's even much worst after the Enlightenment, because I was reading a good bit about it and the scientific revolution lately, and it was pointed out that a huge historical shift occurred then about how we think of the past. Prior to that time it was normal for people to strive to be like the heroes of the past, the greatness of the past is what you ideally wanted to match up to, but afterwards we started to think of ourselves as better and as more knowledgeable and enlightened. Seems like it could have been a double whammy for doubting Thomas syndrome. Not only a huge increase of atheism, but also a new mentality of arrogance that we are better than the "Gullible People" from the past.

 

[cloudyday2]

What do historians have to do with Torah?

Torah is not a history book/s.

Torah is the very soul and will of the Creator,
lessons, it is in layers so if one can come no further,
lift a layer.

Through the ages many have wanted to abolish Torah,
some by force others by diluting and contamination.

Hanacha is about a jar of uncontaminated oil that was found enough for one day but burned for eight,

so too with Torah.

Torah is truth and truth cannot die.

You probably are familiar with the Documentary Hypothesis ( Documentary hypothesis - Wikipedia ). That prior to the time of Ezra there was no fixed and official Torah. Different Jewish sects had different Torahs and different historical time periods. Almost all historians believe that, but they argue over the specifics.

So how does that history of the Torah's evolution coexist with the belief that the Torah is a truth that came from heaven? The Torah claims to have arrived through Moses on Sinai, but actually it evolved from many earlier sources and was combined into a single around the time of Ezra.

It's analogous to the problem of reconciling evolution with the belief that humans were created in the image of God and are radically different from our animal companions. Were early hominids still animals or were they humans, and when did the change happen? If humans have some extra spiritual nature that animals lack, could that extra feature have developed gradually or could it have only happened suddenly?

So if the Torah is an image of some Truth that came down from heaven, could that Truth have evolved gradually and existed in many different sources from Jewish sects with different theologies prior to the time of Ezra? Were the earlier sources of the Torah partial truths and only the final Torah was the full truth?

So it's the history of the composition of the Torah that is the issue rather than the historical narratives contained in the Torah.

 

[Robban]

You probably are familiar with the Documentary Hypothesis ( Documentary hypothesis - Wikipedia ). That prior to the time of Ezra there was no fixed and official Torah. Different Jewish sects had different Torahs and different historical time periods. Almost all historians believe that, but they argue over the specifics.

So how does that history of the Torah's evolution coexist with the belief that the Torah is a truth that came from heaven? The Torah claims to have arrived through Moses on Sinai, but actually it evolved from many earlier sources and was combined into a single around the time of Ezra.

It's analogous to the problem of reconciling evolution with the believe that humans were created in the image of God and are not the same as our animal companions. Were early hominids animals or humans and when did the change happen? If humans have some extra spiritual nature that animals lack, could that extra feature develop gradually or could it have only happened suddenly?

So if the Torah is an image of some Truth that came down from heaven, could that Truth have evolved gradually and existed in many different sources from Jewish sects with different theologies prior to the time of Ezra? Were the earlier sources of the Torah partial truths and only the final Torah was the full truth?

It is considered Abraham knew the whole of the Torah before it was given.

Beginning with Eden, it is not so much that Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden but that the presence of the Holy One withdrew to the highest of heavens.

Gradually being brought down level by level until the great manifestation at Sinai.

When a Jewish soul comes into this world into a body,

it knows the whole Torah but an angel smacks it on the mouth so it would forget.

But not all is forgotten, it does not take much to stir the G-dly soul and awaken it.

A flinstone that has been lying under water for 50 years,
pick it up and strike it,
it will give a spark.

Be aware of this worlds falseness,

a body is laid in the ground and we must mourn,

but if one is one with truth one does not die, one passes on.

For truth cannot die.

 

[Robban]

You probably are familiar with the Documentary Hypothesis ( Documentary hypothesis - Wikipedia ). That prior to the time of Ezra there was no fixed and official Torah. Different Jewish sects had different Torahs and different historical time periods. Almost all historians believe that, but they argue over the specifics.

So how does that history of the Torah's evolution coexist with the belief that the Torah is a truth that came from heaven? The Torah claims to have arrived through Moses on Sinai, but actually it evolved from many earlier sources and was combined into a single around the time of Ezra.

It's analogous to the problem of reconciling evolution with the belief that humans were created in the image of God and are radically different from our animal companions. Were early hominids still animals or were they humans, and when did the change happen? If humans have some extra spiritual nature that animals lack, could that extra feature have developed gradually or could it have only happened suddenly?

So if the Torah is an image of some Truth that came down from heaven, could that Truth have evolved gradually and existed in many different sources from Jewish sects with different theologies prior to the time of Ezra? Were the earlier sources of the Torah partial truths and only the final Torah was the full truth?

So it's the history of the composition of the Torah that is the issue rather than the historical narratives contained in the Torah.

Made in the image of God is understood to mean;

Man the only species who has been given free will, the ability to reason
and a sense of morality,